Project Native American Teachers for Indigenous Values in Education (Project NATIVE)

TOCC is working with the University of Arizona College of Education to address the extreme shortage of American Indian teachers in Arizona. In 2000, and again in 2003, TOCC was awarded grants from the United States Department of Education (the two grants totaling $1.7 million) to prepare American Indians becoming public school teachers. Through Project NATIVE I, TOCC successfully placed twelve new teachers on or near the Tohono O’odham Nation. With Project Native II, TOCC supported around twenty members of the Tohono O’odham Nation and the nearby Pascua Yaqui Tribe as they earned their bachelor degrees in education and become certified teachers on the Tohono O’odham Nation or in Tucson schools with high American Indian enrollment.  Project NATIVE III, supported by a $3.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, has extended the initiative into special education and educational leadership.  A press release about Project NATIVE appears here: http://uanews.org/node/23197